Certain things have the potential to pull previously successful states into third world status.

The first thing that has the potential to pull previously successful states into third world status is bad governance. Governance, contrary to what many people imagine, is not just about the maintenance of law and order. Good governance is complex, and it involves the government’s hand being present in all sectors, both in overt and convert ways. When that fails to happen, you start seeing manifestations of bad governance everywhere.

The second thing that has the potential to pull previously successful states into third world status is corruption. Corruption affects all sectors and it soon leads into poverty: both at the individual level and at the state level.

The third thing that has the potential to pull previously successful states into third world status is depletion of natural resources. The wealth of certain states is predicated on certain natural resources (such as oil) meaning that the moment such resources are depleted, the countries sink into poverty.

The fourth thing that has the potential to pull previously successful states into third world status is natural disaster. A country that was already in a precarious situation just needs a single natural calamity to sink completely.

The fate of many third world countries, especially those in Africa, would improve a great deal if they could unite in political federations. Yet many of these third world countries seem to find it hard to unite for their common good, especially when uniting means coming together to form real political federations. In fact, the trend seems to be toward further disintegration, as opposed to federation.

The first reason as to why third world countries find it hard to unite for common good is because majority of these countries are client states. As such, their patrons won’t allow them to form federations, for fear of losing the power they hold over them. You have to appreciate that the leaders of most of these client states are simply agents of the patron states: who get instructions for pretty much everything from the patrons.

The second reason as to why third world countries find it hard to unite for common good is because their leaders are afraid of losing power. So they’d rather hold onto the nominal power that comes from leading failed, unviable states, as opposed to federating for the good of their people. Of course, some states have genuine concerns of ending up being federated with other ‘evil’ states.

It is a well known fact that majority of third world governments tend to have difficulties raising adequate revenue to finance their operations.

The first reason as to why majority of third world governments have difficulties raising adequate revenue is because most of the people they govern are poor. Some of these are people who are so poor that you can’t even ask them to do tax filings. Even the seemingly better off people in these countries, including those in the likes of the retail sector, still tend to be poor people by global standards. Collecting taxes from these sorts of people is likely to end up costing more than the amounts of money that are collected at the end of the day.

The second reason as to why majority of third world governments have difficulties raising adequate revenue is because they often lack the structures for proper revenue collection.

The third reason as to why majority of third world governments have difficulties raising adequate revenue is because corruption tend to be endemic in the countries they rule over. Corruption has a direct as well as an indirect impact on revenue collection. These are hindrances to collection of revenues from both the corporations working there and the individuals living there.

Most third world countries are not food secure. Closer analysis reveals that there are several things that are hampering food security in these countries.

Firstly, we have some countries where lack of access to technology is hampering food security. Here, we are not even talking about fancy technology: such as Gmail.com communication technology or other related www.gmail.com access technologies. We are talking about basic technologies: like where tractors are not easy to get in some of these countries, and where in some countries, people are unable to use improved seeds, fertilizers, pesticides and other things that would enhance productivity.

Secondly, we have some countries where poor climatic conditions hamper food security. Climate change has turned out to be very acutely felt in some of these third world countries, where many people are still reliant on subsistence agriculture.

Thirdly, we have some third world countries where poor land tenure systems hamper food security. This is where, for instance, land is continually being fragmented, and where that leads to situations whereby the units available for agricultural use are simply not viable.

Fourthly, we have some third world countries where population growth that is not matched by proper planning has led to poor food security. A huge population is only a blessing if proper planning is done for it.

A trend has been observed, where first world countries continually seek to dominate third world countries. A question arises as to why they seek to do this: especially seeing that the dominance is often achieved at very high costs (sometimes including human life costs).

Now the first reason as to why first world countries seek to dominate third world countries is because they see the said third world countries as good sources of raw materials for their industries. This is what keeps the levels of industrialization in the third world low, which in turn leads to low levels of development and even scenarios where people living in relatively fertile countries have to rely on food aid.

The second reason as to why first world countries seek to dominate third world countries is because they see the said third world countries as good markets for their finished products.

The third reason as to why first world countries seek to dominate third world countries is because they see the said third world countries as possible hosts for their strategic military installations. Thus, for instance, a first world country, having achieved dominance over a third world country, proceeds to install an anti-missile defense shield, or to station a war ship there. This is important in a world where global influence still depends on military power.

We have seen, in many previous posts, that a major problem bedeviling third world countries is that of planning. Simply put, most third world countries fail when it comes to planning. We are trying to understand why that happens.

The first reason as to why most third world countries fail when it comes to planning is because they often lack the necessary statistics for planning. In some of these countries, there is no registration at birth, and neither are death certificates issued: meaning that, in the first place, the countries have no mechanisms for knowing how many of their citizens are alive. In some of these countries, things are so bad that censuses are even ‘rigged.’

The second reason as to why most third world countries fail when it comes to planning is because they often lack skilled manpower (for the planning function). Sometimes you go to the planning ministries’ headquarters, and you realize that the people responsible for Gmail planning at Google (which offers the integrated Gmail.com service) are more than those that some countries have for national planning!

The third reason as to why most third world countries fail when it comes to planning is because they often lack foresighted leaders, who’d have proper appreciation for the importance of planning.

The educational systems in third world countries tend to face certain problems.

Firstly, we tend to have a situation where the educational systems in third world countries are based on the wrong philosophies. Many of these systems, for instance, tend to focus more on rote learning, as opposed to promoting creative, critical thinking. And this is not something that occurs coincidentally. It is something that happens deliberately: as the leaders are afraid of having citizens who are capable of critical thinking. And thanks to such systems, you end up with folks who have as many as 12 years of education who can’t do something as simple as signing up for Ymail.com accounts, or even running Ymail accounts that have already been set up! Being products of rote learning, they are unable to apply the knowledge they acquire in one context to another context. They have to be led through everything.

Secondly, we tend to have a situation where the educational systems in the third world countries are underfunded. Sometimes, this is due to poverty. At other times, it is due to corruption.

Thirdly, we tend to have a situation where the educational systems in the third world countries are overburdened. This is typically due to poor planning, which is unable to keep up with the population.

The manner in which third world governments run social welfare programs is very different from the manner in which similar programs are run in the first world. We have a situation where, in the first world, social welfare programs are run in a ‘direct’ manner. For instance, to cater for folks who can’t afford food, the governments provide food stamps directly. To cater for healthcare costs for folks who can’t afford to pay for the same by themselves, the governments run programs like Medicaid, which are essentially government health insurance programs.

In the third world, we tend to have a situation where, the governments, rather than giving the people food stamps, simply give them food aid directly.

We also have a situation where, in the third world, rather than giving people access to government medical insurance programs like the Medicaid program, the governments simply set up their own healthcare facilities, where they provide subsidized healthcare services directly.

There is one key reason as to why third world governments opt to do things in this way. The reason is in the fact that the levels of poverty tend to be very high in these countries, meaning that there are far too many people in need of government help.

Many third world countries tend to experience political instability from time to time. Close examination of the situations in these countries often reveals that there are certain core things that fuel the said political instability.

In some cases, the political instability in third world countries turns out to be a result of poor governance. The poor governance leads to poverty, which in turn leads to political uprisings. At other times, the poor governance leads to breakdown of the state organs that are supposed to intervene in case of political instability.

In some other cases, the political instability in third world countries turns out to be as a result of interference by developed countries. The developed countries interfere (using underhand means, of course) in order to ensure that the third world countries become unstable, so that they can exploit their resources or otherwise use them as platforms to achieve other strategic objectives.

In yet other cases, the political instability in third world countries turns out to be as a result of historical factors. This is where, for instance, you find situations where the colonialists (most third world countries were colonized) set the borders in such a manner that they ended up grouping together communities that simply can’t coexist.

Third world countries can use certain strategies to improve foreign direct investment inflows.

The first strategy that can be used by third world countries to improve foreign direct investment inflows is that of developing good human resource pools. Investors are likely to invest where there are people capable of being engaged in productive activities without requiring too much training or retraining.

The second strategy that can be used by third world countries to improve foreign direct investment inflows is that of developing good infrastructure. Investors are likely to invest where there are good roads, where there are good, modern rail networks, where there are efficient ports… and so on.

The third method that can be used by third world countries to improve foreign direct investment inflows is that of putting in place measures to guarantee political stability.

The fourth method that can be used by third world countries to improve foreign direct investment inflows is that of offering direct incentives to prospective investors. But an effort should be made, to avoid using ‘incentives’ as a shortcut to attracting foreign direct investment. The truth of the matter is in the fact that if a country has good human resource, good infrastructure and political stability, it is bound to attract foreign direct investment ‘automatically’ without having to offer incentives.

The way the world works is such that we tend to have a lot of money flowing from the first world countries to the third world countries. There are, in actual fact, some three ways in which money moves from first world countries to third world countries.

The first way in which money moves from first world countries to third world countries is through aid. The aid is either channeled through the government directly or through Non Governmental Organizations.

The second way in which money moves from first world countries to third world countries is through remittances. These are usually personal arrangements, like where, Diaspora citizens send money to their poor relatives in third world countries. It can be a situation where, for instance, a Diaspora citizen living in a place like, say, New Jersey, makes an unemployment claim at www.njuifile.net, (that is, the www.njuifile.net weekly claim) after going through the njuifile.net sign in page requirements, only to send a portion of the money to his relatives back home. The argument would be that, in spite of his hard predicament in the west, his relatives back home need the money more.

The third way in which money moves from first world countries to third world countries is through foreign direct investment.

People trying to promote good governance in third world countries tend to face certain challenges.

The first challenge faced by people trying to promote good governance in third world countries is that of ethnicity.

The second challenge faced by people trying to promote good governance in third world countries is that of poverty. Poor people are easily swayed to vote for leaders who promote bad governance.

The third challenge faced by people trying to promote good governance in third world countries is that of lack of education. Uneducated folks are hard to motivate into seeing the ‘bigger picture.’

The fourth challenge faced by people trying to promote good governance in third world countries is that of hostility from the beneficiaries of bad governance. This is akin to the hostility that you too would face if, for instance, you tried to change IT support in an organization, from being an internal function, to being one offered online through the likes of the LogMeIn123 portal. In that situation, you’d have people who benefit from the status quo being opposed to any ideas to move the IT support function to www.logmein123.com. They’d even start making allegations about the logmein123.com scam: just to ensure that the new idea, which threatens their interests, doesn’t succeed.

Often, we come across complaints that the aid sent by developed countries to third world countries doesn’t make a difference. Some of these turn out to be fair complaints. But rather than focusing on the problem, we need to focus on the solution: by identifying the strategies that can be used for ensuring that the aid sent to third world countries actually makes a difference.

Now one strategy for ensuring that the aid sent to third world countries actually makes a difference is that of appointing monitoring and evaluation officers: to monitor the usage of the aid on the ground.

Another strategy for ensuring that the aid sent to third world countries actually makes a difference is that of seeing to it that the aid is only earmarked for projects that have genuine impact on the ground.

Yet another strategy for ensuring that the aid sent to third world countries actually makes a difference is that of seeing to it that the aid is channeled through non governmental organizations, as opposed to government agencies. If you opt to use this strategy, you need to ensure that the NGOs partnered with don’t use most of the money for their own operations either. Left to their own devices, the folks in the NGOs may, for instance, start outsourcing everything – including payroll preparation, which can be outsourced to a company like ADP as described in this post.

Certain things can be done, to promote democracy in third world countries.

Firstly, if you want to promote democracy in third world countries, you need to invest heavily in education. People who are properly educated are likely to develop the critical thinking that is necessary for effective participation in democratic processes. But this has to be proper education: education that promotes critical thinking, as opposed to education by rote, which only promotes the memorization facts with no critical thinking component whatsoever.

Secondly, if you want to promote democracy in third world countries, you need to invest heavily in economic development. Folks who are economically empowered, like, for instance, those working for Macys, which has a remarkable employee connection website are unlikely to be easily taken advantage of by politicians who are undemocratic. It is poor people who are forced by the immediate circumstances to lose sight of the bigger picture: thus promoting the propagation of impunity and other undemocratic ethos in their societies.

Thirdly, if you want to promote democracy in third world countries, you need to invest heavily in the creation and propagation of strong political parties. In the absence of strong political parties, politics ends up being centered on personalities, and once matters get personal, it is very hard for real democracy to take root.

There is no denying that third world countries are lagging behind considerably in development.

The first reason as to why third world countries lag behind in development is something to do with the fact that most of them have histories of colonialism, slavery and neocolonialism. Through slavery, they lost their best manpower to other countries. Through colonialism, they lost resources. And through neocolonialism, their efforts at ‘self-improvement’ are sabotaged.

The second reason as to why third world countries lag behind in development is something to do with the fact that many of them have bad governance structures. These are the sorts of countries where, for instance, navigating the bureaucracy to register a company is very hard. You just have to read this article about online corporation registration in Florida USA, and compare it with the process of registering a corporation in many of the third world countries, to get an idea as to why such countries lag behind in development.

The third reason as to why third world countries lag behind in development is something to do with the fact that many of them are geographically disadvantaged. Consequently, many of them have no natural resources (like minerals) to rely on, and a good number of them also happen to in places where the climate is very hostile.

It is possible, by checking out just a few things, to tell if you are in a third world country.

The first thing that can tell you if you are in a third world country is infrastructure development.

The second thing that can tell you if you are in a third world country is the appearance (in terms of things like contentedness) of the folks you encounter on the streets.

The third thing that can tell you if you are in a third world country is by checking how well the rule of law is being applied. In a third world country, you will notice that things like traffic rules are not observed. But in a developed country, you get flagged for even the smallest misdemeanor. That is how, for something as simple as parking where you are not supposed to park, you end up having to pay a hefty fine at a portal like www.njmcdirect.com – that being a portal which many people refer to as NJMC Direct. On the other hand, in a third world country, even if you are indeed flagged for the same misdemeanor, what is more likely to happen is that a bribe will be solicited from you, by a corrupt official. The approach in the developed world may seem taciturn: but it is due to that strict approach that we end up with the level of order and development that we see in the developed world.

We often encounter heartrending stories about people taking huge risks, including sailing in unseaworthy vessels, in order to escape from third world (and get into developed countries). A question arises, as to why people do this.

Now the first reason as to why people often seek to flee from third world countries is in the fact that there are fewer opportunities for a decent living in such countries. In a developed country, you can simply get a job by, say, going to a website like 88 Sears. That is, you just visit a site like www.88sears.com, post your application, and you find that in a matter of days, you are being given 88sears login credentials: having landed a job. On the other hand, in a third world country, you often have to do a lot of bootlicking, to get even the lowliest of jobs.

The second reason as to why people often seek to flee from third world countries is in the fact that the value of life in such countries is often low.

The third reason as to why people often seek to flee from third world countries is in the fact that life in such countries is often unpredictable.

The fourth reason as to why people often seek to flee from third world countries is in the fact that governance and the rule of law in such countries is often poor.

Several things can make the cost of living, in any given country, high.

The first thing that can make the cost of living in any given country high is poor economic policies (like, for instance, those that discourage competition).

The second thing that can make the cost of living in any given country high is corruption. Corruption increases the cost of doing business: with the additional cost being passed onto the ordinary citizens at the bottom of the pyramid. You will notice that there some countries that are so corrupt that, for instance, you can’t use conveniences like Citicards credit cards or even undertake the www.citicards.com sign in procedure in them. In fact, in such countries, due to corruption (which hinders the development of the necessary infrastructure for Internet connectivity), you may not even be able to access the www.citicards.com login page.

The third thing that can make the cost of living in any given country high is lack of natural resources. Countries will an abundance of natural resources like oil are able to subsidize stuff for their citizens: making the cost of living bearable.

The fourth thing that can make the cost of living in any given country high is poor climate. Countries with poor climates end up having to import most of their food: raising the cost of living substantially.

We have been conditioned to believe that there are no advantages to living in the third world. This is against a background where the first world (the developed world) is typically presented as some sort of heaven, with the third world being some sort of hell. The truth of the matter is a little bit more nuanced though. That is because, like everything, living in the third world has its own advantages and disadvantages. We will focus on the advantages for now.

The first advantage of living in the third world is in the fact that the pace of life there tends to be slower (so you get to savor more).

The second advantage of living in the third world is in the fact that the cost of living there tends to be lower. So you can live like a king, on relatively little money.

The third advantage of living in the third world is in the fact that the climates are often friendlier (especially for the third world countries that are in the tropics).

The fourth advantage of living in the third world is in the fact that the sense of community tends to be stronger there: unlike in the first world, where there is so much individualism.

It helps too that thanks to globalization, people living in the third world are able to enjoy the conveniences enjoyed by people living in the first world (without having to go through some of the troubles associated with the first world). Nowadays it should, for instance, be possible for a person in the third world to use a plastic money card and even shop in a foreign online store like www.walmart.com so long as he or she can login to such a store from wherever he or she is, presumably in an idyllic third world paradise!

Of course, things can get very tricky if you happen to have no income in a third world country, as there are no safety nets. In most of these countries, there aren’t even soup kitchens, and the possibility of actually starving to death is very real.